Work Text:
Chise had come to learn that Elias was uncharacteristically affectionate with her. She supposed that he had always been that way towards her even when they were nearly strangers, with her mind drifting back to the way he so gently held her that night in the light of the moon when he had proposed to her. He seemed to enjoy sweeping her tiny form into his enormous cloak, holding her protectively against his massive chest. He also had never been shy about lovingly nuzzling her cheek with his bony muzzle.
The last few weeks they had grown accustomed to sleeping together, which perhaps sounded rather spicy but the fact was they acted more like the older kind of married couple who had been married for fifty years. There was a mutual understanding that Chise was too young for their relationship to broaden into anything resembling physicality, and the truth was Chise wasn’t even sure if it was possible.
It was almost adorable the way that she could tell Elias came to want her to sleep with him. At first she could tell he wasn’t sure about it- after all, sleeping was an individual function and from a nonhuman standpoint it didn’t really make sense to lay next to each other unconscious for hours. But then Chise explained to him how husbands and wives sleep together, and how couples will lay down together a certain way that can be quite enjoyable. It was ridiculous and almost hilarious, teaching this ancient skeletal beast how to do something as dainty and romantic as cuddling, and yet that was how the first week was spent.
After about a week of this, Chise decided to give Elias a break and after dinner she retired to her room. She’d been buried in a book when the floorboards creaked by her door, alerting her to the presence of her husband. She twisted around in her chair, smiling at him.
“Hello, Elias,” she chirped.
In response, his scarlet eyes flickered. He stood like that for a solid minute, his hands folded behind his back, his expressionless skull just staring at her. To a stranger, seeing this being in their doorframe would have been the epitome of a living nightmare. But to someone like Chise who was learning to read his very subtle expressions and mannerisms, she could tell he was at war with himself about something.
“Is… everything okay?” she prompted, hoping to bring an end to his obvious awkwardness.
He made a strangled sound in his throat. At times like these Chise remembered that this big bad monster was emotionally about the same age as her. Teenage boys, she inwardly laughed, shaking her head.
“Do you want something, Elias?”
Finally, a response. “I’m… I’m not sure. I haven’t felt this before.”
Chise cocked her head. “Well, try to explain it, maybe I can help?”
He fell into silence again. Chise hoped it wouldn’t span very long. Such a somber boy. “I was headed to my room… when I realized you were in your room. And then it occurred to me that we would be in separate rooms tonight. And it made me feel… very…” He struggled for words.
“Would you like me to come sleep with you, Elias?” Chise’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Yes please.”
And so that was how they both became accustomed to sleeping together every night. Chise came to fall in love with the quiet moments they spent together in bed, just him and her. Sometimes they talked, sometimes Elias would just hook his arm around her waist and pull her against him and they’d exist like that in gentle silence for hours.
Another interesting thing she learned about Elias was how he slept. Because of his horns, he had to sleep on his stomach like some kind of enormous, horned dog. There was an extreme vulnerability in the image of Elias Ainsworth in his silky pajamas, sleeping face down under the covers. It was something Chise knew she’d never get tired of seeing.
There were some nights that Elias drifted off to sleep before she did. She could only tell because his red eyes vanished in his sockets, which she thought was like a human closing their eyes. His breathing would become very deep and she’d know he was off into the land of dreams. She wondered what his dreams looked like. Did he even have dreams? She made a mental note to ask him that in the morning.
Almost unconsciously she started running her hands down his shoulder blades, gently scratching her nails along his spine. She was quite startled by the deep groan that erupted from her husband’s chest.
Elias shifted in his sleep, but his inky black sockets remained vacant. Chise had never really attempted to scratch him before- sometimes she’d give him a little scratch under his chin, which he seemed to enjoy, but that was the extent of it. It occurred to her that no one had probably ever really given him any kind of massage or back scratch before. It reminded her of the way dogs simply melted when she started to pet them.
She kept running her nails lightly across his back, over the sharp angles of his shoulder blades down the long line of his spine and then lazy circles over his ribcage. It was strangely calming, just lying there scratching him. It felt like something normal that a wife would do for her husband. And normalcy was rare in their household.
The hazy red glow blinked to life in Elias’ sockets. He shifted his skull towards her groggily. “Chise?” he rumbled. “What are you doing?”
Chise pulled her hand away quickly. “I’m sorry, I was just–– I was just sort of rubbing your back. You seem to like it when I scratch under your chin, so I thought… ah, sorry, I can stop.”
To her surprise, Elias rolled closer to her. “Keep doing it,” he mumbled. “Feels good.”
Chise hesitated before returning her small hand to his massive back, running her nails along his dark skin like she had before. When she began rubbing along his shoulders, there came a low rumbling sound from his chest, almost like a cat purring.
“I assume you’ve never had a back rub before?” she murmured, smiling into the crook of his arm.
“Never.”
She let her hands explore his shoulders and his neck, before running down the lengths of his arms and then back over to his ribcage. He continued to make little sounds at her touch, which was possibly the purest thing Chise had ever seen him do. He was pretty much a giant dog at this point.
Eventually the red glow disappeared and Elias’ back rose and fell in deep sleep. She pressed a little kiss into his back before curling her body against his like a kitten. His arm pulled her closer to his chest, and like that Chise felt her eyelids begin to grow heavy.
Something told her that tomorrow night Elias would sheepishly ask her for another back rub.